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This review aims to give a critical view of the wheel/rail high frequency vibration-induced vibration fatigue in railway bogie.

Vibration fatigue of railway bogie arising from the wheel/rail high frequency vibration has become the main concern of railway operators. Previous reviews usually focused on the formation mechanism of wheel/rail high frequency vibration. This paper thus gives a critical review of the vibration fatigue of railway bogie owing to the short-pitch irregularities-induced high frequency vibration, including a brief introduction of short-pitch irregularities, associated high frequency vibration in railway bogie, typical vibration fatigue failure cases of railway bogie and methodologies used for the assessment of vibration fatigue and research gaps.

The results showed that the resulting excitation frequencies of short-pitch irregularity vary substantially due to different track types and formation mechanisms. The axle box-mounted components are much more vulnerable to vibration fatigue compared with other components. The wheel polygonal wear and rail corrugation-induced high frequency vibration is the main driving force of fatigue failure, and the fatigue crack usually initiates from the defect of the weld seam. Vibration spectrum for attachments of railway bogie defined in the standard underestimates the vibration level arising from the short-pitch irregularities. The current investigations on vibration fatigue mainly focus on the methods to improve the accuracy of fatigue damage assessment, and a systematical design method for vibration fatigue remains a huge gap to improve the survival probability when the rail vehicle is subjected to vibration fatigue.

The research can facilitate the development of a new methodology to improve the fatigue life of railway vehicles when subjected to wheel/rail high frequency vibration.

Multinational small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly participating in cross-border digital platforms – especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, knowledge integration (KI) has become more and more important. In fact, it has been deemed by many as the key to organizational resilience. Given this burgeoning phenomenon, this study aims to explore a path for improving the resilience of multinational SMEs. Through this process, this study also finds a relationship between the KI processes associated with adopting global digital platforms and the resiliency of local–global businesses. Hence, in part, this paper also explores the effectiveness of all these mechanisms.

This study used the stepwise regression method in Stata 16.0 to analyze the direct effects of both horizontal and vertical KI processes on the resilience of local–global businesses. Additionally, t-tests were also used to compare the differences in coefficients between the mechanisms. The sample analyzed comprised data on multinational manufacturing SMEs in the Yangtze River Delta region of China who are using global digital platforms.

The KI processes of these firms, both horizontal and vertical, positively correlate to resilience. Horizontal KI processes more efficiently increase the resilience of global businesses, whereas vertical processes more efficiently increase the resilience of local businesses.

First, this study provides insights into how multinational SMEs can improve their resilience in a crisis. In addition to adding to the knowledge of KI processes, this expands the KM literature on pandemics. Second, by creating two KI processes based on global digital platforms and discussing their influence on resilience, this research deepens the understanding of affordance in the KM literature. Third, focusing on the KI research stream, the results shed light on how KI processes might occur and how firms develop their KI processes.

The rapid growth of the solo economy in the Asia-Pacific area indicates an economic transition. In East Asia, solitary households are growing along with low marital rates and birth rates under high economic pressure. Because of these population changes, malls must provide good quality service to meet the specific needs of solitary households and social households. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this study, relationships among service quality, customer satisfaction (CS), perceived value, corporate image and customer loyalty were compared between social and solitary customers of Taiwan click-and-mortar malls. The effects of five service quality dimensions on CS and customer loyalty were investigated by structural equation modeling.

The analytical results show that all hypothesized relationships among factors were supported with the exception of the impact of perceived value on satisfaction and the impact of the corporate image on satisfaction. Additionally, the comparison between solitary and social customers showed that service quality, corporate image and customer loyalty have strong relationships without differences between both kinds of customers. Solitary and social customers only differed in the impact of perceived value on loyalty.

The managerial implication of this study is that, to satisfy both social and solitary customers and to increase their loyalty, Click-and-mortar malls (CAM malls) should apply different service quality strategies for social and solitary customers. To satisfy both types of customers, a strategy for increasing visible cares should be applied in social customers, and a strategy for increasing the perception of reliability, assurance and visible cares should be applied in solitary customers. To enhance the loyalty of solitary customers, a CAM mall should enhance the value perceived by solitary customers, which can help CAM malls increase the loyalty of solitary customers in the solo economy.

The solo economy is a hot topic in East Asia because the issue of solo economy impacts the market. A CAM mall must evolve its business to attract solitary customers. However, no studies compared perceived quality, satisfaction, perceived value, corporate image and loyalty between solitary customers and social customers. This study is the first study investigated the business model of CAM malls.

Social entrepreneurship has played a significant role in reducing unemployment and poverty, fixing other social issues and environmental concerns. Although there is an increasing concern on social entrepreneurship by the public sector, practitioner and scholars, there are still limited studies on predicting the intention to become a social entrepreneur. Thus, investigating social entrepreneurship intention using a systematic literature review (SLR) approach is crucial due to the lack of systematisation and categorisation in this field. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a SLR to identify the antecedents of social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) used by the previous research. In this sense, this chapter carries out a systematic review of the literature on social entrepreneurship intentions. The review is guided by the PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses). After the identification and screening process, only 56 articles were qualified for further analysis. This SLR focused on articles that are using quantitative research and in the English language published in Scopus. Although there is no limitation in the timeline, the search string results found that the related articles were published between 2010 and 2020. From the thematic analysis, nine main themes were found. The themes are categorised based on the antecedents of SEI used by previous research. There are nine antecedents found: (1) perceived desirability and feasibility, (2) attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, (3) prior experience, (4) emotional factors, (5) self-efficacy, (6) personality, (7) support systems, (8) skills and competencies and (9) motivational factors. Further analysis of the themes has resulted in ten sub-themes. This chapter's contribution includes offering a clearer picture of the antecedents of social entrepreneurial intention that is still at its infancy stage. Additionally, this chapter managed to identify the research gaps and proposed future research agenda.

This paper aims to explore how manufacturing firms pursue business model innovation (BMI) through their use of outside-in thinking.

Survey data were collected on 175 Chinese manufacturing firms. A regression model was used to verify the research results.

Manufacturing firms rely on outside-in thinking to develop BMI under different market and institutional environments. From a whole-value-chain perspective, interacting with customers and sharing information with suppliers are two key ways to develop BMI.

Firms focus on customer needs, sense the dynamics of external markets and technology and seize market opportunities to measure outside-in thinking. Empirical results suggest using other measures of outside-in thinking. BMI itself can be multidimensional, so scholars could consider BMI’s diverse dimensions and measurements, which may demand different kinds of outside-in thinking.

Manufacturing firms can use outside-in thinking to overcome inertia and rigidity and increase their knowledge, information and technology. Managers should develop outside-in thinking to respond quickly to emerging economies. Managers should use value chain collaboration and improve the firm’s capacity to interact with customers and suppliers to apply the benefits of outside-in thinking to their BMI.

The study explores how outside-in thinking is a key driver of BMI. Applying the whole-value-chain view, it finds that interacting with customers and suppliers connects outside-in thinking with BMI. It also highlights the effects of intense market competition and volatile government regulation on BMI.

This paper aims to investigate microstructure, corrosion behavior and mechanical properties of Mg-4Li and Mg-4Li-3Al.

The microstructure was characterized by using scanning electron microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction. The corrosion behaviors were measured by hydrogen evolution and potentiodynamic polarization tests. The mechanical properties were evaluated by tensile tests.

The addition of Al results in the precipitation of some Mg-Al phase and Al3Li phase particles, and the formation of some fine recrystallized grains.

Mg-4Li-3Al showed a higher corrosion rate than that of Mg-4Li, attributed to the precipitate particles in Mg-4Li-3Al causing microgalvanic corrosion and the change of grain orientation. The addition of 3 Wt. per cent Al increased the tensile strength by solid solution strengthening, precipitation strengthening, refinement strengthening and texture strengthening, whilst the elongation decreased by almost half.

The industry-wide adoption of a novel practice is often considered to be an institutional change. Although research on institutionalization has been accumulating, how and why embedded actors in the field become motivated to embrace change that remains sidelined. Viewing the introduction of a new human resource management practice, the recruitment of non-compulsory certified manpower, which is still in its infancy in the service sector of Taiwan, as a new institution, the purpose of this paper is to identify the distinct motives behind firms’ hiring decisions, and examine the extent to which such hiring decisions are contingent on institutional conditions and firm attributes.

The data used to test the hypotheses were drawn from a survey on service firms in Taiwan in the second half of 2011. Hypotheses were examined through moderated hierarchical regression analyses in a sample of 254 Taiwanese service firms across major sectors.

Integrating the resource dependency and social contagion views, the study contends that resource scarcity drives, or legitimacy enables, service firms to deviate from traditional hiring patterns and instead adopt new preferences toward certified manpower. The study not only shows that social factors should be incorporated into the diffusion of a new HR recruitment practice in the service sector, which is traditionally based upon economic considerations, but also sheds light on the context-dependent nature of the process of institutional innovation.

This study is an attempt not only to test a dual-theoretical model on the extent to which a service firm’s new hiring pattern is influenced by two distinct types of motivation, but also to evidence how an institutional innovation, in terms of the regime of service manpower certification, takes root and spreads in the field. The managerially discretional account of the resource dependence theory needs to be reconciled with social contagion theory, which highlights the influence of collective actions and so provides a better understanding of the diffusion of new HR recruitment practices in the service industry.

Articulation errors substantially reduce speech intelligibility and the ease of spoken communication. Moreover, the articulation learning process that speech-language pathologists must provide is time consuming and expensive. The purpose of this paper, to facilitate the articulation learning process, is to develop a computer-aided articulation learning system to help subjects with articulation disorders.

Facial animations, including lip and tongue animations, are used to convey the manner and place of articulation to the subject. This process improves the effectiveness of articulation learning. An interactive learning system is implemented through pronunciation confusion networks (PCNs) and automatic speech recognition (ASR), which are applied to identify mispronunciations.

Speech and facial animations are effective for assisting subjects in imitating sounds and developing articulatory ability. PCNs and ASR can be used to automatically identify mispronunciations.

Future research will evaluate the clinical performance of this approach to articulation learning.

The experimental results of this study indicate that it is feasible for clinically implementing a computer-aided articulation learning system in learning articulation.

This study developed a computer-aided articulation learning system to facilitate improving speech production ability in subjects with articulation disorders.

This study aims to investigate the effect of microalloyed Ca and Ce on microstructure and corrosion behavior of Mg-1.5Zn alloy. Mg-1.5Zn-xCa-xCe alloys were prepared by melting, extrusion and rolling processes.

The effects of adding Ca and Ce elements alone or adding Ca and Ce elements simultaneously on the microstructure and corrosion resistance of Mg-1.5Zn-xCa-xCe (x = 0 or 0.2 Wt.%) alloys were studied by scanning electron microscopy, hydrogen evolution tests and electrochemical experiments.

The addition of Ca and Ce elements alone or the addition of Ca and Ce elements had little impact on the grain size of the rolled and annealed Mg-1.5Zn-xCa-xCe alloy, but had a greater effect on the type and quantity of the second phase.

The order of the corrosion rates for the three alloys was Mg-1.5Zn-0.2Ca < Mg-1.5Zn-0.2Ca-0.2Ce < Mg-1.5Zn-0.2Ce. Mg-1.5Zn-0.2Ca showed the best corrosion resistance, which was related to the second phase and corrosion products.

The influence of Zn concentration on microstructure and corrosion performance of the Mg–xZn alloys microalloyed with Ca and Ce was investigated through optic microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, hydrogen evolution, dynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy experiments.

In this paper, Mg–xZn alloys (x = 0.5∼2.0 Wt.%) microalloyed with Ca and Ce (0.2 Wt.% each) were prepared.

As the increase of Zn concentration, the number of second phase particles (Mg-Zn-Ca, Mg-Zn-Ce and Mg-Ce phases) increased, and when the Zn concentration increased to 2.0 Wt.%, the new second phase Mg-Zn phase was precipitated.

The influence of Zn concentration on corrosion mechanism of Mg-xZn alloys microalloyed with Ca and Ce was revealed. Increasing of the Zn concentration resulted in the intensification of galvanic corrosion. When Zn concentration was 0.5 Wt.%, the alloy showed the lowest corrosion rate (0.61 mm y-1), which was about 1/2 of that of Mg-2.0Zn-0.2Ca-0.2Ce alloy.